03 Feb 2014

Member of Parliament for Letlhakeng West, Mr Ngaka Ngaka has emphasised the need for politicians to meet with civil servants in their constituencies to find answers to community problems rather than tackling them at Parliamentary level.

Speaking in a meeting with civil servants in Letlhakeng recently, Mr Ngaka said such meetings usually afford MPs an opportunity to appreciate challenges and find answers so that they ultimately ask only necessary questions in Parliament.

Mr Ngaka was meeting with the civil servants after a completion of a round of meetings with village committees around his constituency. He said general complaints were raised concerning areas such as poor roads maintenance, shortage of teachers and water.

Mr Ngaka said it emerged that destitution is one of the major challenges in the area, and that people complained that the Department of Social and Community Development (S&CD) takes too long to give potential beneficiaries feedback after assessment.

He said other complaints were that the assistance was often rendered to people who do not require it while the more deserving were sidelined. He also said in most villages, it emerged that most primary schools operate with a high shortage of teachers.

“There are some instances where temporary teachers outnumber permanent ones, which according to me is an anomaly. This affects dispensation of education because temporary teachers are normally given short contracts of only a few months,” he said.

He stressed that teachers and pupils have to build a mutual understanding, which is not possible with temporary teachers because of their relatively short stay at schools. Mr Ngaka also complained about poor maintenance of schools such as Lempu JSS in Salajwe.

On another issue he said the area complains about shortage of water, citing villages such as Dutlwe, which he said can go for about a week without water. He said the Khudumelapye boreholes at the moment provide low daily yields and therefore cannot fully provide the village.

For her part, the head of S&CD in Letlhakeng, Ms Sedimme Jeremiah noted that undeserving people could benefit from their programmes due to the fact that people often conceal vital information when assessed.

“In most cases we only realise late that we are assisting people that have benefited from other government programmes. This will be because such people would have failed to provide such information during assessment,” she said.

She said the Village Development Committees (VDC) works hand in hand with social workers as they know members of the community better, but said it is unfortunate that some VDCs have been accused of favouritism. The acting chief education officer for Letlhakeng Sub-region, Mr Magwaile Khao said the issues of temporary teachers outnumbering permanent ones was not a problem as they were equally qualified.

“The only difference is that one is employed temporarily while the other is permanent, but the issue of constant movement is the one that can cause problems in the smooth dissemination of education,” he said.

Mr Khao also said that issues such as pupils being assigned only temporary teachers for about four consecutive years can be easily dealt with by the school heads as they are the ones that allocate classes.

On the issues of poor maintenance at Lempu JSS, Mr Khao said it will be looked into. Still at the same meeting, Letlhakeng youth officer, Ms Helen Masolotate said that each youth office is allocated P2 million for you

th projects, and said that because applications are often overwhelming, there has to be stringent assessment, which ultimately raises the number of those rejected. She said the problem is exacerbated by beneficiaries’ failure to repay their loans as per the contractual agreement.

She also advised that parents should not force projects on the youth, but rather let them pursue projects they have interest in, saying this might help in addressing the problem of high level of project dissertation by the youth.

This was after Mr Ngaka also highlighted on complaints of high rejection of projects by the youth. ENDS